


Marks of Life

by NinaFey



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domesticity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 17:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4714466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinaFey/pseuds/NinaFey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alana examines the ways life has changed her body. Set in the three year gap after Digestivo. Mentions of scars and past trauma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marks of Life

It was a cold night and her skin had turned to gooseflesh, making Alana be painfully aware of her body. Her hip ached with a sharp intensity, she swore she could feel the coolness of the metal in it and the pins used for her back, but this was nothing out of the ordinary. She stood in front of a mirror examining her naked body. There they were, the small scars were the pins had been inserted, a pink line where her hip had been opened and a few marks, resembling nothing artistic nor beautiful, where the window’s glass had cut her. Her attention, however, turned to her newest scar. It was barely darkening in colour, and it was by the far the most delicate mark on her body. She smiled as her own fingers traced it, as it was the mark of birth. Her body was soft with the weight her son had added and her skin was stretched, but her lips curved upward at the thought of her child. Her wife and child.

_She went back to that day at her doctor’s bone-white office and her sympathetic smile to both of them. It wasn’t going to be an easy pregnancy, she had explained to them, something they had both been aware from the beginning. It was going to add weight and pressure to Alana’s newly healed hip and really, the best thing to do was to perform a C-section. It was expected in the circumstances, of course, but Alana found herself squeezing Margot’s hand a little harder than she would have liked. Still she watched the doctor mark the day of her son’s birth in her tablet with practiced passiveness. During that moment she had felt Margot studying her features with the concentration a linguist would give to lost language only she could understand._

_“It’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay.” She had told her once in the privacy of their car._

_“I know. Just not a fan of operating rooms, is all.” She had added the traces of a laugh at the end of the sentence._

_“It won’t be like…” Margot had wanted to say that it wouldn’t be like when she had been pieced back together but had decided to choose her words more carefully. “I’ll be in there with you.” Her voice was drenched in gratitude and guilt that she had expressed a million times before in a thousand different ways. Margot still couldn’t quite believe Alana would do this, not for her; the manner in which she held her gaze gave her away. The look upon her eyes reminded Alana of a phrase she’d read in a book long ago, there was the awkward tenderness to her of someone who had never been loved and was forced to improvise._

_Alana could do nothing else but kiss her. “As you should be.”_

Now she stood in their bathroom contemplating what life, instead of trauma, looked like on her. Her breasts were fuller and her face bore the signs of a few sleepless nights. It was splendid, she decided. And with that thought, she jumped into the shower and the room was soon filled with steam.

“God, it’s like a sauna in here.” She heard Margot say just outside the shower a few minutes later.

“It’s cold out! Or was in any case” Alana replied as the warm water hit her back. She thought she heard Margot only hum in response. “Are you gonna come in or…” but she wasn’t allowed to finish her sentence.

“In my experience saunas are a lot more bearable if there are no clothes involved.” Margot said lowly as she joined her in the shower. Alana only smiled in that way she had come to reserve solely for Margot.

There were no more words exchanged beyond that point. It became about the falling water, the foam forming on each other’s bodies and deep kisses. Margot was always careful to hold her and curve whatever more ambitious and adventurous streak she had in her. When they were like this time seemed to stop. Before Margot Alana could only empathize with feelings of love; she understood the theory of it much like a physicist understood the workings of the universe, it was quite another thing to feel the burning of the stars. Then there was warmth spreading throughout her body which came with the knowledge that Margot was in that same place with her. It was an addictive sensation and she’d bottle it if she could, to always be enveloped in it. Her feelings were no longer being dissected by her own mind, they were allowed to flow out of her and become infectious and for the first time ever this was a wonderful thing. Soon there was not telling were each other’s hands ended and where their bodies began, something they reproduced time and time again since they were first exposed to each other. It was as if life had smashed them to pieces and they had rebuilt one another, exchanging pieces here and there.

The spell broke when Margot’s hands wandered to Alana’s womb out of habit and her fingers lingered on the scar that lied at the bottom of it. It was new, but familiar territory. The air became charged with something other than water and desire. Margot said nothing but Alana knew her thoughts lied on her own and similar scar. Her lips rested on Alana’s shoulder, as if trying to express themselves, and her breath mixed with the steam surrounding them. There would always be the slight tinge of sadness of their past horrors blending in with their joy, luckily they would always find a way to dilute it. Alana turned in her wife’s arms and held her just as she had been holding her.

“It’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay.” She felt Margot nod against her as they stood with their bodies pressed together.

“I know.” Margot tightened her embrace and let the water cascade on them.

**Author's Note:**

> The book referenced is "The House of Spirits" by Isabel Allende. One day I'll manage to write a longer story about these two with an actual plot.


End file.
